


what does it mean?

by Nonbinarytoni



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Tumblr request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 16:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15319539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonbinarytoni/pseuds/Nonbinarytoni
Summary: “What does it mean when I can’t get you out of my mind?” + a confused post-ca2 bucky trying to figure out why he feels these feelings for steve





	what does it mean?

_ There was scuffed leather, stretched thin enough that its dark brown was faded into tawny wrinkles, tawny edges, worn down soles and shoelaces so frayed they could barely fit through the eyelets--there were voices, low, as if whispering, as if afraid that the world would find them out. There was grumbling, the shift of fabric so cheap it sounded like plastic crinkling instead, and a few shaky breaths were released. It smelled like cheap cologne and cigarettes, calming enough that he could feel his body relaxing, could feel the smoke drifting along the ceiling filling his lungs, could feel it pulse through his veins and bring a calm otherwise unknown. _

_ Somehow, through the keyhole, he could see the bed--a metal frame, rusted at every joint, promising a nasty case of tetanus if anyone was clumsy enough to scratch themself on it. It creaked with the movement on top, and he had to strain to view what was happening. There was a blond, with a straight nose and a frail body, but also another person--his hair was dark, his nose was crooked, his cheeks were dark, but not with a flush; there were bruises adorning the skin, nasty ones with multiple colors, puffy from irritation. Their lips were connecting, gentle noises coaxing him as close to the lock as he could get, as if entranced by the action alone. _

_ The longer he watched, the more fuzzy the image became. The more the two began to fade away, the more the smell of cigarettes got stronger until it felt like he was suffocating, falling away from the door. His hands gripped at his throat, wheezing coughs racking through his body. He fell to the ground on his knees, torso curled forward, desperately trying to grasp at the breaths evading him. He stopped coughing and his body convulsed once, twice, the gentle murmur of the two in the next room guiding him into the dark, his limbs growing cold, his eyes trained on the yellow light seeping from under the door. _

When he woke up, his arm was stuck to his side, his eyes focused up on the roof above him. He worked on his breathing, in, out, in, out--count five things he can feel, count four things he can see, and keep it going. Feel the blanket under his hand--it’s soft, it’s cotton, it’s pliant and it doesn’t crinkle. It pressed up against his cheek and felt soft against his stubble, enough for him to keep it there, enough for him to rub it against his skin for a few more moments until he was sufficiently grounded. 

Dreams like this were commonplace now that he felt comfortable enough in his environment to function. His body wasn’t stressed, wasn’t malnourished, wasn’t fighting to stay alive each time he woke up. His mind wasn’t treating Steve as a threat when he woke him up with food in the mornings anymore. His mind wasn’t forcing him to reach for the knife he kept under the mattress each time he heard an alarm go off; his handgun stayed in the lowest drawer of the bedside table, even when the fireworks were exploding all over the neighborhood on Steve’s birthday last year. 

Apparently, these achievements brought more stress into Bucky’s life in the form of memories forgotten long ago. The first batches of their fucked up therapy, associating each of his favorite memories with pain, with anguish, with his nerves on fire and not in a good way. Associating everything he once loved with his body being sliced open and taken apart, with the phantom pain he got in his arm occasionally; everything he used to love, everything he used to cherish--it was all forced into a part of his mind along with the worst of HYDRA’s experiments on him--left in the dark, never to be brought up or seen again.

He ignored the dreams that felt unimportant, wrote them down so he wouldn’t forget, but they remained untouched in conversation with Steve over dinner. Only the important ones were brought up--those involving his family, involving Yom Kippur, involving Tu Bishvat and going to temple with his little siblings--those were important. Those were things he deserved to know about, things he knew Steve would be more than happy to explain. They were past the point of being upset over Bucky’s memory--if he knew something, there was no avoiding it or skirting the subject unless Steve wanted an irate and grumpy ex-assassin on his hands. 

More often than not, those nights filled with long talks and memories would end with Steve sleeping in Bucky’s bed--not touching, not breathing too loudly, as if he was scared to set Bucky on edge. As if Bucky didn’t feel an innate desire to curl up against his side and hold him in his arms. As if he hadn’t kept dreams of the two of them, curled up against each other, hair messy and breath rasping. As if they weren’t both spent and exhausted from acts he could only imagine. As if the topic itself was taboo and never to be brought up, as if Steve himself didn’t turn pink at the implication they were anything other than platonic in the past, and shut down from the subject.

He ignored the pit in his stomach, metal hand rubbing delicately over the glass in front of him--condensation lining the outside of it with mini droplets of water. He hated the cold feeling, hated the way he had to wipe off his flesh hand whenever he would take a sip, so he reserved the act for his bionic arm instead. 

The way Steve was shifting in the seat across from him, chewing extra long on his fries, sipping his water more slowly than usual, leveling Bucky with these stares he could only guess meant that he knew Bucky was trying to lead up into something--it struck a chord and made him antsy in his seat, eyebrows furrowing while he stared at the drops falling down his glass, wetting the table beneath it. It was better than meeting Steve’s eyes again, especially when he knew what his reaction would be to the conversation he had  _ yet _ to start.

“So,” he began, ignoring the pit pinning him to his chair, “Steve. Last night. There was… what I think? What I think may have been an important dream.” He hesitated, eyes just briefly glancing up to meet blue across the table. There was doubt and insecurity in them, a bit of anxiety with the way Bucky was skirting around the subject, but overmore, curiosity.

Steve finished the bite he was chewing, steadying his hand to rest over Bucky’s. “Yeah?” His fingers squeezed over the other’s, attempting to provide some sort of comfort. “Do you remember what it was about? Feel like sharing with the class?” His teasing tone eased Bucky’s nerves just a bit, and he let out a huff, tugging his hand away from Steve’s Big Man Hands. 

“You know, maybe I don’t anymore. I don’t exactly give sassy martyrs a glimpse into my troubled and anguished soul.” He rolled his eyes, turning his head away from the other.

“But, you know, ‘m not just  _ any _ sassy martyr. I’m  _ the _ sassy martyr.” He pointed his fork at Bucky and pursed his lips, in a total douche face of  _ you know I’m right _ . “And I believe I deserve a bit of a reward after slaving over hot oil for a half hour, with no fan to cool me down, mind you.”

“The oil could have jumped up to burn you, for all I care. I take it back, you don’t get to know what memory I may or may not have seen in my sleep deprived state.”

Steve hesitated, humor briefly neglected in favor of actually worrying over Bucky. He set his utensil down and bit at the inside of his bottom lip. “Buck,” he paused, taking in a deep breath, “you know that I care about you. You know that I’m all here for you, especially if you want to share what you’ve been thinking about. I won’t push you if you really decided against it, but I already appreciate that you trust me enough for everything else. It means the world to me.”

It took a couple moments for Bucky to muster his courage back up again. He tapped his hands against his knees, bouncing his legs against the floor as an outlet for all that pent up anxiety Steve seemed to give him… all the time. 

“Okay,” he took in a shaky breath. “Okay. I had a dream and it was before the war. It was. At our old apartment, with the yellow wallpaper and the couch that never stopped smelling like the shoes I wore to the docks. But it smelled like cigarettes, the ones I used to smoke. And it smelled like cologne, and I don’t know where I recognize it from? But it was nice. It was spicy but… like an aftershave, not an Indian restaurant. And there was a locked door, but I couldn’t get in and when I did? It was. It was these two people and they were naked but they were covered by blankets and one of them was beat and he might have been. He might have been someone related to me? I don’t know.”

Steve’s breath stilled and his cheeks turned pink. His knuckles turned white, gripping the edge of the table, his mouth unmoving. No sounds came from him, but his eyes were locked onto Bucky’s face, watching his reaction, taking in his cadence, his fluency, gauging his thoughts to everything.

“I’ve had a couple dreams like this,” he was spilling everything, and he didn’t know why, but the silence from Steve egged him on--as if he was in the right, as if Steve knew exactly what he was talking about. If he was ashamed of it, Bucky was going to make damn sure he knew that he remembered it all. “All of them. They’re all us. All of them. And I wake up, and you’re not there, and it feels like I’m falling off the train again until I remember what year it is.” He pauses, looking up from his plate to Steve’s face, eyes soaking in the purse of his lips, the way the edges of his eyes crinkle in his young age, the way his jaw is set, as if holding back from saying anything, so Bucky continues on. “You’re always there. You always help me remember these things, you always help me come to terms with them.”

Steve grit his teeth and he held his hand up to his mouth, rubbing over his jowls, which made Bucky blurt out details of his past dreams--how they were sweaty, how they always shared a bed, how they were rarely ever fully clothed, how every second they seemed to be touching each other. With each sentence, it seemed like Steve’s composure fell further until his lips were twitching and he was resting his forehead on his hand, eyes closed.

“C’mon. Tell me. Tell me what it means. What does it mean?” His breath grew shakier the more he spoke, growing quieter in the ever growing silence on Steve’s end. He was whispering now, barely hanging on to the last of his resolve.

“What does it mean when I can’t get you out of my head?”

There was a strangled breath from Steve, and he was wiping at his eyes. To Bucky, there was nothing there, no moisture, no traces of tears--but then his eyes followed Steve’s hands and he could see the shine on the meat of his thumb, rubbing against his pants against the table. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve’s voice was hoarse, and it sounded too complicated for Bucky to work through all the emotions behind it, but he revelled in knowing he  _ finally,  _ finally got Steve to acknowledge everything. “I’m sorry, Buck. I didn’t want to--I didn’t know you could remember. I didn’t want to influence you. I didn’t want to assume anything was there because I was reading too much into things. Dammit, I’ve spent long enough mourning you. I didn’t want to lose you again.”

And then Bucky felt like an ass, felt like everything he did earlier was uncalled for because Steve wasn’t  _ ignoring _ it, he was trying to make Bucky comfortable. He was trying to let Bucky get used to life again, and he took it the wrong way.  _ God _ , he was  _ such _ an ass. 

This time, Bucky was the one who reached across the table, grabbing hold of Steve’s hand. He rubbed his thumb over the wet spot on his palm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Steve,” he prompted, tracing shapes over the larger hand in his own. The blond looked at him again, eyes shinier than they were before, but that steeled look on his face, like he was ready for Bucky to take his world away again. “Steve,” it was hushed, gentle, soothing. “You’re never going to lose me again. It’s been years. I’m… I’m here. I’m here to stay.” Bucky licked his lips, eyes glinting a bit in the light himself. “You didn’t influence anything. We’re good. We’re better than good, okay bud?”

“We used to be together. In love, right.”

Steve let out a sob. Bucky squeezed his hand and brought his hand up to his lips. 

“I think it’s time to start again.”


End file.
